I’ve known all of my life that something wasn’t quite right. Even from a young age, I felt out of sync with everyone around me. As I got older, this widened to a larger and larger gap, to the point where I felt stranded on an island by myself. The reverberations of my mood instability, I understand, was frightening, a turn-off; why would anyone want to subject themselves to such if they could avoid it? And of course, how does one close the gap once it has yawned open so widely?

For that, and many other reasons, getting my bipolar diagnosis was a godsend. Knowing what made me tick officially, plus gave me the tools to rein in the violence of my moods. It has been nothing short of brilliant in knowing that the most recent relationships I’ve developed have no idea of how bad it used to be. It’s brilliant that I don’t have to sit back and watch me scare people away because the way everything felt was so overwhelming that a leaf in a river current had a better chance of survival.

That doesn’t mean that I’m cured, though. Bipolar isn’t exactly something that one can wave a magic wand at and make disappear. Even though my meds are just about to a point where my swings are very slow and less brutal, I know that they’ll never fully go away. Not that I don’t want to know the feelings of ups and downs… I just want them more manageable, bite-sized, not the life-encompassing hell that was undiagnosed and untreated bipolar. I want to have as normal a life as possible, same as anyone else. I think it’s getting there, slowly; there’s a lot of avoidance I have to train out of myself for the nth time. And it’s still no guarantee that the bipolar won’t adapt and find a new way to shiv me in the back; it’s done it before, and it will find new ways to get at me. I know this, and grump at my brain for trying to shoot me in the foot before I can even try to walk. Good thing I’m extremely stubborn, right?

For now though, I will bow to my gratitude that I have friendships gained since diagnosis that are practically unaffected by my bipolar. I will be grateful that I’m still progressing in a better direction. ‘Cause really, if I don’t appreciate the crap out of the good times as they spring up, the bad side of things has won… and screw that bastid. *nods firmly*

<3